Episode

#89 Michael Huemer's New Argument for Atheism

Podcast
The Uncertainty Podcast
Published
Jun 25, 2026
Duration seconds
6792
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https://mileskdonahue.substack.com/p/89-michael-huemers-new-argument-for
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Markdown
/podcast/the-uncertainty-podcast-7089022/89-michael-huemer-s-new-argument-for-atheism.md

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Summary

Michael Huemer, philosopher at U.C. Boulder, joins me for a wide-ranging discussion of arguments for and against the existence of God, with special focus on his new argument for atheism: the impossibility of an infinite God. Check out Mike’s book, Knowledge, Value, and Reality: A Mostly Common Sense Guide to Philosophy . Video of this interview is available on YouTube . To support the channel, do please oh please consider donating, either via PayPal or Buy Me a Coffee . Follow me on X because you’re awesome . EPISODE CHAPTERS: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:42 Huemer’s research on consciousness 00:05:42 Could LLMs be conscious? 00:08:11 Physicalism and consciousness 00:14:36 Why physicalism became so popular 00:17:16 Metaphysics and scientific evidence 00:21:01 Could God be empirically detected? 00:23:37 Why Huemer is agnostic 00:25:48 Philip Goff’s limited God 00:27:23 Can a limited God explain evil? 00:36:03 Divine psychology and skeptical theism 00:38:37 Can theism make predictions? 00:46:54 Scientific confirmation and theistic arguments 00:51:59 Which theistic arguments fail? 00:53:14 The ontological argument 00:58:06 The modal ontological argument 01:01:03 Necessary beings and modal intuitions 01:07:23 The Kalam cosmological argument 01:08:54 Could time have a beginning? 01:12:22 Can God create time? 01:18:22 Cosmology and the Big Bang 01:23:48 Actual and potential infinities 01:26:00 Huemer’s new argument for atheism 01:29:28 Divine infinity and omniscience Get full access to Miles K. Donahue at mileskdonahue.substack.com/subscribe